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This is an artist's conception of the Liberty Launch Vehicle under development by Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) of Promontory, Utah, for NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Image credit: Alliant Techsystems Inc. › Larger image

One of NASA's industry partners, Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) of Utah, successfully held a Launch System Initial Systems Design (ISD) Review of its Liberty Transportation System. This is the third milestone to be completed under ATK's unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

ATK has five milestones to meet under the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement, which enables NASA and ATK teams to exchange technical information related to Liberty during the Preliminary Design Review phase of the program.

"This unfunded partnership with ATK on its Liberty systems brings expertise from around the globe and we are glad to contribute our more than 50 years of human spaceflight experience to this effort,” said Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager.

During the ISD, Liberty team members from ATK, its European-based partner, Astrium, and their subcontractors presented the status of Liberty’s system level requirements, preliminary design and certification process to representatives from the Commercial Crew Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and other NASA centers.

“With the SAA in place we have been able to work closely with NASA’s Commercial Program and receive valuable feedback as we develop the Liberty Transportation System,” said Kent Rominger, ATK vice president and program manager for Liberty. “We continued to develop Liberty with the goal of providing the safest, most reliable, cost-effective and capable launch vehicle for crew transport.”

The current SAA continues through at least March. The two milestones met earlier include a Requirements Status Briefing and a Technical Interchange Meeting for the Liberty Transportation System. Two additional milestones are scheduled to be completed under this SAA.

All of NASA’s industry partners continue to meet their established milestones in developing commercial crew transportation capabilities that will ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station, reducing the amount of time America is without its own system.